by Bill Myers
The shaking of the door handle stopped.
“They musta gone down the alley,” a man’s voice said.
“Check it out,” the woman ordered. “Bruno, go the other way.”
“What are you going to do?” the other voice asked.
“Call the Compound. Now hurry! We’ve got to find them!”
The beams of light disappeared, and the footsteps began moving off.
Willard zipped over houses, roads, and a freeway or two. The good news was Cody had nothing left to throw up. The bad news was he was still sicker than a dog.
Willard’s flying had improved quite a bit. And, other than that one close call with the 747 coming in for a landing (never fly a helio-hopper near a major airport) he did pretty well. Soon, they were soaring over the homes in Pasadena.
“We’re getting close!” he shouted, looking at the GPS tracker. “She’s in this neighborhood.”
“I hope she’s okay,” Cody yelled back. “There was something about her voice.”
Moment’s later, Willard shouted, “I’m landing! The last transmission was on this block!”
Cody nodded as Willard reduced power. Unfortunately, he reduced it just a little too much and they fell like a rock.
“AUGH!” Cody yelled.
“AUGH!” Willard agreed.
They slammed hard onto the road and — BOING! — bounced back up. And slammed hard and — BOING! And slammed hard and — Well, you get the picture. Finally, after a couple minutes of the pogo-stick imitation, they came to a stop.
“Well,” Willard said as Cody threw up again, just for old time’s sake, “that was rather exciting.” He turned to Cody and said, “You appear somewhat pale, my friend. Might I suggest you get a bit more sun?”
Cody said nothing. He was just grateful to be back on the ground. When he finally did speak, he managed to squeak out the words, “Are you sure this is the right place?”
“I’m double-checking,” Willard said as he pressed more buttons on his GPS. “I’m triangulating the signal at this present time and . . .” He hesitated.
“And what?” Cody asked.
Willard scowled hard at the numbers. “The call was transmitted within five feet of this very location.”
Cody glanced around. “So where did they go?”
“Perhaps one of these houses is their aunt’s residence.”
“Yeah, but which one?”
“Why don’t you call her and ask?” Willard said.
“Because . . .” Cody came to a stop. “Because . . .”
“What?” Willard asked.
“Why didn’t we just call in the first place?”
Willard looked at him and shrugged. “An excellent observation, and one we should consider the next time we encounter a similar situation.”
“You mean when we’re not hanging on for our lives, trying not to die?” Cody said.
“Yes, something to that effect.”
Cody shook his head and reached for his phone to dial Piper’s number.
Inside the RV, Piper held her breath as the voices continued to fade.
Suddenly, her cell phone began playing, “If I Only Had a Brain.”
“Shut it off !” Zach whispered.
She fumbled in her pocket and pulled out the phone.
It nearly slipped from her hands as she struggled to turn it off.
Silas came to a stop at the porch steps. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Bruno asked.
“It was like music.” He listened again. “It’s gone now.”
Up on the porch, Monica was pacing. There was nothing she hated worse than calling Shadow Man — especially when it came to giving him bad news.
The two men watched as her left eye began twitching the way it did whenever she became nervous.
“She’s pretty upset,” Silas whispered.
“Really?” Bruno replied. “Her foot ain’t tapping.”
“Not yet, but — ”
Suddenly, her right foot began to tap.
“There it goes,” Bruno whispered.
Silas nodded.
Both men looked on — Silas, because he was nervous; Bruno, because he was in love. Of course, Silas had tried to warn Bruno that it wasn’t such a good idea falling in love with your boss. But whenever she was around, all fourteen or fifteen of Bruno’s brain cells went into hyper ga-ga.
The third phase of Monica’s nerves kicked in. She began swallowing . . . hard.
Twitch, twitch, tap, tap, swallow, swallow.
Swallow, swallow, tap, tap, twitch, twitch.
“She’s sooo beautiful,” Bruno said with a sigh.
“Not now, you dork,” Silas warned.
At last she reached for her phone and hit the speed dial.
In the dark mountain compound, the phone rang. A long shadowy arm reached for the receiver. “Yesss?” a voice hissed.
Monica answered, “We’re still looking for them, sir.”
A strange, screeching sound escaped from Shadow Man’s throat. Then, after taking a deep breath, he asked, “Did they not come to the houssse?”
“Yes . . . they came in the front door and went out the back.”
“You let them get away?”
“No, I mean, yes. I mean, we’re looking for them right now and — ”
Another screech leapt from Shadow Man’s throat.
Then, with a wheezing breath, he shouted, “You know what will happen if you fail!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then fiiiind themmm!!”
The kids huddled beneath the table in the dark. They could hear the woman shouting instructions. It sounded like she was leaving, but they couldn’t be certain.
Always the “mom” of the group, Piper turned to see how Elijah was doing. But when she spotted him, he was grinning even bigger than before.
She glanced at Zach, who also saw it.
Then, ever so softly, Elijah began to hum.
Zach and Piper exchanged worried looks.
The humming grew louder until, very softly, Elijah began to sing. A hymn! Like they sang in church!
“Shh!” Zach warned. “Quiet, Elijah.”
The boy opened his eyes. It almost looked like he was about to say something when, all of a sudden, someone banged on the door.
Zach and Piper froze. Elijah quit singing.
Someone banged on the door again.
“Maybe they’ll go away,” Piper whispered.
Elijah slipped out from under the table.
“Elijah!” Zach whispered.
But he didn’t listen. Instead, he started for the door.
“Eli, get back here!”
Elijah reached for the handle and unlocked it.
Zach sprang toward him. But instead of stopping the boy, he tripped and slammed into him. The two fell into the door, which flew open. Unable to catch themselves, they tumbled out of the RV and onto the ground right in front of . . . Cody and Willard!
Zach looked up at them in surprise. “What are you guys — ”
“Shh!” Cody whispered. “They’re searching the neighborhood for you.”
Piper watched wide-eyed as the boys climbed back into the RV silently and shut the door.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“I thought you were in some kind of trouble,” Cody said, his blue eyes shining even in the dark.
Piper opened her mouth, but no words would come.
Willard explained. “We flew my helio-hopper over.”
Before Piper could ask what a helio-whatever was, her brother had moved to the windshield and was looking outside.
“What do you observe?” Willard asked.
“They must have gone around front. They’re nowhere in sight . . . at least for now.”
“What do we do?” Piper asked, still unable to take her eyes from Cody’s.
Zach sighed heavily. “We can’t stay here.”
“Maybe we should make a run for it,” Cody offe
red.
“I do not believe that is advisable,” Willard said.
Piper nodded. “Willard’s right. We can never outrun them . . . at least not on foot.”
As Cody’s looked at the driver’s seat, a thought began taking shape. “Who said anything about using our feet?” He moved to join Zach at the front of the RV. “Does this thing run?”
Zach looked to him, then back to the driver’s seat. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.” He fished into his pocket to pull out the key Elijah had given him.
Piper’s heart raced. “Zach, you’re not going to try and start it?”
“You got any better ideas?”
Once again she opened her mouth, and once again there were no words.
Zach slipped into the seat, bent over to find the ignition, and inserted the key. “Well, here goes nothing.”
And “nothing” is exactly what happened — except for the dull click of the starter.
He tried again.
Another click.
“Battery’s dead,” Cody said.
Zach nodded.
“Now what?” Piper groaned. She glanced back to Cody, who’d already turned to Willard.
“Well . . .” Willard cleared his throat. “It is perhaps possible to connect the battery of my helio-hopper to the battery of the RV. That may generate enough electrical power to — ”
“Right,” Cody interrupted. “But we need jumper cables.”
“There might be some in the shed,” Zach suggested.
“It’s locked,” Piper reminded him.
“Perhaps we could reroute the starter to my battery,”
Willard suggested, “then onto the RV’s battery — provided we can secure enough wire from the accessories panel.”
The group traded looks.
“What are we waiting for?” Zach blurted. “Let’s get to work!”
Mom and Dad had no idea where they were — it was some sort of storeroom with office supplies. They were tied together, back to back, in two wooden chairs.
And, even though their backs were to each other, Dad could still hear his wife’s quiet tears.
“Sweetheart, we’ve got to be strong,” he said.
“I know,” she answered hoarsely. “I just can’t stop worrying about the kids.”
“They’ll be all right. Zach is tough. And Piper is smart.”
She softly sniffed. “I just wish we could contact them. Let them know we’re okay.”
“And make sure they don’t come looking for us,” Dad added.
“Oh, Mike.” She sucked in her breath. “You don’t think they would, do you?”
To be honest, he wasn’t certain. He wished he could warn them and tell them not to fall for any tricks. To help calm his wife, he tried changing the subject. “Let’s see if we can get out of these ropes.”
“How? They’ve got us tied so tightly I can barely move. No way can we break free of these chairs.”
For the hundredth time, he tried moving his own arms and legs, and for the hundredth time he failed. She was absolutely right. There was nothing they could do. Unless . . . An idea began to form. “Maybe we can’t break free of the chairs,” he said, “but . . . maybe they can break free of us.”
“What?”
“We can’t move in these chairs. But if we could break one, it might give us room to wiggle. Here, start rocking with me.”
“What do you — ”
“The floor is concrete. If we fall over hard enough and slam the chairs into the concrete, we might be able to break them.”
“Or our backs.”
“It’s worth a try,” he said. “What else can we do?”
Mom had no answer.
He started to rock slowly. “Come on, join me.”
She hesitated, and then finally began to rock with him.
“That’s it,” he said.
They rocked harder.
“Keep it up. And when we fall, smash as hard as you can onto the floor.”
“Right.”
Seconds later, it happened. The chairs tipped to the left. The couple leaned as hard as they could until they crashed onto the floor near the wall.
There was a loud CRACK.
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“It was the arm. It’s loose. Now if I can just wiggle my hand free.”
Another moment and he shouted, “Got it!” With his loose hand, he moved the ropes until he freed his other. Next he worked on his feet.
“Mike?” his wife asked in concern.
“Hang on, sweetheart, I’m just about there.”
Chapter Six The Escape
The RV was a mess. The protective cover between the front seats was off. The engine was exposed. And there were so many wires it looked like a spaghetti factory had exploded.
“How’s it coming?” Piper asked, holding their one and only flashlight.
Cody looked up and gave her that killer smile of his. “Well, I think we’ve done as much damage as we can.”
“Actually,” Willard cleared his throat, “we have stripped the wires from the accessories panel in the RV and are quite certain it will carry the low voltage emitting from my helio-hopper battery. Then, of course, we must splice it back from the RV’s starter into the RV’s battery to maintain engine performance.”
Piper looked at Cody.
Cody looked at Zach.
Finally, Zach cleared his throat. “Great. And once we’re out of here, let’s get something to eat. I’m starved.”
“You’re always starved,” Piper said.
“Hey, I’m a growing boy.”
“Who’ll eat everything,” Piper agreed.
“Not everything.”
“What do you mean?’ ” she asked. “Name me one thing you won’t eat.”
“Remember the macaroni and cheese you tried frying up in mustard and ketchup?”
“Zach . . .”
“And covered in horseradish?”
Piper felt her ears growing hot. “It was an experiment.”
“Tell that to Molly.”
“Who’s Molly?” Willard asked.
“Our dog,” Zach explained. “Nobody would eat it so we gave it to her.”
“What happened?”
“We had to take her to the vet.”
“Zach . . .” Piper repeated her warning.
But her brother was on a roll and there was no stopping him. “To the emergency room — ”
“Zach, please . . .” She stole a look over to Cody.
“Where they had to pump her stomach so she wouldn’t die!” Zach broke out laughing. He could really crack himself up at times.
Piper would have joined in if she wasn’t busy giving him one of her death ray stares . . . until she spotted Cody looking at her . . . until she suddenly changed it to a smile, trying to look all pleasant and polite.
Unfortunately, the look on Cody’s face said she failed on both accounts.
After a lengthy pause that redefined the term awkward, Willard said, “I have half a burger and some fries left over in my sweatshirt pocket.”
“Left over from what?” Zach asked.
“Lunch.”
The group exchanged glances.
Willard reached into his pocket and explained, “Waste not, want not.”
He pulled out the bag and handed it to Elijah, who sat the closest. But instead of passing the bag over, Elijah held it a moment. In the dim light it almost looked like he was moving his lips.
Paying no attention, Zach grabbed the bag from him and opened it. “I don’t care what you got, I could eat a — ” He came to a stop.
